Suggestions for making a Fender HRD III Quieter for Practice (or Alternatives!!)

-NFM-

Hey - hoping someone else has done something similar before & has suggestions!!

Essentially, looking to get a new amp & i'm looking for something thats fairly clean with good headroom so I can use it as a platform for pedals - ideally suitable for small gigs/jam session as well as home use. Tried out a few, and the HRD seems to be the winner at the moment; but it seems to have no 'low volume' and gets loud very quickly - good for band use, not for my neighbours!!

My thoughts are that possibly a tube swap might help (IIRC there are lower power models that will fit the same sockets?) or some sort of passive volume control (like EHX signal pad) in FX loop. (An attenuator would be overkill and just shorten life of the tubes as I'm not looking to 'push' the amp hard, and instead want to rely on the pedals to colour my sound)

Wondering whats the best option to make it work at low volumes or if anyone has other good amp suggestions!

ICBM

Seriously, just turn the controls carefully. It's not impossible to dial them in for a good low-volume sound.

If for some reason that really doesn't work, a volume box in the FX loop will.

Different valves won't make a significant difference - lower-gain preamp valves will make the amp cleaner but not a lot quieter - although may be worth trying, a 12AT7 in V1 works fairly well. Different power valves (it's possible to fit 6V6s, although you need to mod the amp a bit) will simply reduce the maximum volume, which is not what you need.

uncledick

There are some Boogie Express 5:25s and 5:50s (the original i.e. not + model) around for reasonable money.  A better solution imho. 

edit:  like this http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/96542/mesa-express-5-50-1x12-combo-500#latest

-NFM-

uncledick said:

There are some Boogie Express 5:25s and 5:50s (the original i.e. not + model) around for reasonable money.  A better solution imho. 

edit:  like this http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/96542/mesa-express-5-50-1x12-combo-500#latest

Great suggestion - I'd imagined that even second hand the likes of Mesa Express combos would be way out of budget; same goes for a Fender Princeton which was also possibly on the radar for me.

Up in Scotland for the next couple months and its hard to find the likes of those used here for anywhere near that price wise, but will be moving down to London in the next few months (dependent on job situ!), so may just hang off and see what comes up used after I've moved... also I'll have a good bit more disposable cash to put towards it too (even after accounting for higher cost of living)!

-NFM-

ICBM said:

Seriously, just turn the controls carefully. It's not impossible to dial them in for a good low-volume sound.

If for some reason that really doesn't work, a volume box in the FX loop will.

Different valves won't make a significant difference - lower-gain preamp valves will make the amp cleaner but not a lot quieter - although may be worth trying, a 12AT7 in V1 works fairly well. Different power valves (it's possible to fit 6V6s, although you need to mod the amp a bit) will simply reduce the maximum volume, which is not what you need.

Thanks for the help - yeh, I was able to get it just about right using control but there was so little margin, i just wanted to look at any alternatives! and thanks for the advice on the tube swaps as thats something I'm not that familiar with.

tone1

Try this...

ICBM

-NFM- said:

Thanks for the help - yeh, I was able to get it just about right using control but there was so little margin, i just wanted to look at any alternatives! and thanks for the advice on the tube swaps as thats something I'm not that familiar with.

Yes, the volume box in the loop will do exactly that - as in the video above - by turning down the level there, it expands the usable range of the volume controls and makes them far less touchy.

You can buy ready-made ones online quite cheaply, eg: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Guitar-Amplifier-Attenuator-Volume-Pedal-Passive-Volume-Amp-Reducer-/141620893968?hash=item20f9435910:g:tG4AAOSwKtlWk9Ft

That's quite a good deal, as the parts alone would cost most of that at UK retail.

(Slightly incorrectly called an 'attenuator' - although technically it does attenuate the signal level, in guitar-amp terms an attenuator is more correctly a *power* attenuator, as you already know.)

Spikeedog

I used a Dr Z brake lite when i had this amp with great results. Paid £100 for it.

benmurray85

You won't have any issues getting a HRD to bedroom levels but it's also worth noting if you're using pedals you can essentially just turn the volume down at your pedal. That's what I do. 

Obviously if you disengage the pedal the volume will increase but I've never ever struggled to get a bedroom tone out of my HRD in all the years I've owned it. My Pro Junior on the other hand is a different story!

JD50

Until recently I had a Fender Blues Deville 410 which I loved but my back hated.

I live in a central London flat with my wife & 6 year old daughter..... I could dial the volume to about 0.5 & play late into the evening without waking my daughter or annoying the neighbours....

I actually get more requests to calm down now I am using Irig into the Ipad/Ipod as I can't hear the thrashing of the strings

jonnyburgo

I made a volume box for my old Blues deluxe, dead easy, costs about a tenner and 30 minutes of your time

hotpickups

I've said it before on other posts recently but look into getting a L-Pad built for you. Beats a Dr Z Brake lite for value for money

benmurray85

hotpickups said:

I've said it before on other posts recently but look into getting a L-Pad built for you. Beats a Dr Z Brake lite for value for money

I had great results using an LPad with a 5E3 before. If you hmcan build one or grab one from somewhere definitely give it a try!

-NFM-

Thanks for the input folks - Think I'm just going to go with the volume box... I have some spares bits and pieces already, plus comfortable with a soldering iron and drill so probably will only cost a couple of quid for me to pick up an enclosure, and maybe a 25k pot if I don't happen to have one.

I'm not really looking to try and really saturate the tubes for tone, rather keep it pretty clean - But will keep the LPad in mind for a future project (I might get the folks i've used before for amp repairs to knock one up instead as it doesn't seem too costly for the parts & suspect they will have made similar so could calibrate rough 'tiers' of attenuation as the Dr. Z offers - took a look at a gutshot of one and seems straightforward to do!)

ICBM

You don't need to use an attenuator to saturate the power section - it will work just as well with the amp set clean. In fact, I probably wouldn't want to crank up a Hotrod fully with either a Brake Lite or a typical L-Pad, neither really has the power rating for an overdriven 40W amp.

Still more expensive than the volume box though.

earwighoney

-NFM- said:

Hey - hoping someone else has done something similar before & has suggestions!!

Essentially, looking to get a new amp & i'm looking for something thats fairly clean with good headroom so I can use it as a platform for pedals - ideally suitable for small gigs/jam session as well as home use. Tried out a few, and the HRD seems to be the winner at the moment; but it seems to have no 'low volume' and gets loud very quickly - good for band use, not for my neighbours!!

My thoughts are that possibly a tube swap might help (IIRC there are lower power models that will fit the same sockets?) or some sort of passive volume control (like EHX signal pad) in FX loop. (An attenuator would be overkill and just shorten life of the tubes as I'm not looking to 'push' the amp hard, and instead want to rely on the pedals to colour my sound)

Wondering whats the best option to make it work at low volumes or if anyone has other good amp suggestions!

I've done something to my Fender Blues Deluxe which has tamed the volume a bit, still mighty loud though.

I changed the preamp valves to the following
V1- 12AY7
V2 - 12AXY 
V3 - 12AT7 (Phase Inverter) 

A 12AY7 to the standard 12AX7 in V1 will bring the gain down and make the cleans more manageable. 

The next thing is to use the second input, which is much more controllable than the first input. 

ICBM

earwighoney said:

I've done something to my Fender Blues Deluxe which has tamed the volume a bit, still mighty loud though.

I changed the preamp valves to the following
V1- 12AY7
V2 - 12AXY 
V3 - 12AT7 (Phase Inverter) 

A 12AY7 to the standard 12AX7 in V1 will bring the gain down and make the cleans more manageable. 

That's the best set in my opinion. The 12AY7 is a bit 'sweeter' sounding than the 12AT7 in V1, to me - the AT can be a bit 'cold'. The 12AT7 is cheaper and easier to get though - and is always worth trying first, since if you find the difference worthwhile you can then move it to V3 and put a 12AY in V1 .

clarkefan

ICBM said:

You don't need to use an attenuator to saturate the power section - it will work just as well with the amp set clean. In fact, I probably wouldn't want to crank up a Hotrod fully with either a Brake Lite or a typical L-Pad, neither really has the power rating for an overdriven 40W amp.

Still more expensive than the volume box though.

Just posting to say, you can use a volume box to crank the power section if you want, you use it in the loop, use it to drop the level coming out of the preamp section right down, to like where 1 theoretically is.  Then turn the power amp up, works fine.  This is assuming you have a gain and a vol control.

Not sure if I've asked this before but does anybody have any idea why 25k is the preferred pot value.  There's at least one post on another forum where Brian Wampler suggested 100k but didn't explain why.

ICBM

clarkefan said:

Just posting to say, you can use a volume box to crank the power section if you want, you use it in the loop, use it to drop the level coming out of the preamp section right down, to like where 1 theoretically is.  Then turn the power amp up, works fine.  This is assuming you have a gain and a vol control.

No, turning down the level in the loop can't drive the power amp harder at all, unless you're *also* using a power attenuator. You can turn the drive channel master up and the loop box down, but that's not driving the power amp any harder. The master volume comes before the loop as well.

clarkefan said:

Not sure if I've asked this before but does anybody have any idea why 25k is the preferred pot value.  There's at least one post on another forum where Brian Wampler suggested 100k but didn't explain why.

It makes very little difference, because the loop is properly buffered, with a very low send impedance. Any pot resistance between 10K and 1M will work (at least, maybe even outside that range). A higher value will tend to allow a bit more noise to be picked up, but nothing worse than that.

clarkefan

Thanks @ICBM.  Sorry forgot to mention I didn't mean the HRD,  I was talking more generally about amps that have a preamp volume and a power amp volume.

And thanks for the explanation of 25k v 100k, I'll leave my DIY job alone, cheers

ICBM

You still can't ever drive the power amp harder by cutting the level in the loop, on any amp - a lot of the marketing for these boxes claims you can, but it's impossible if the level control is before the power amp - which the loop always is. You're actually driving the power amp *less* hard, that's the whole point . To reduce the volume. Just because you're turning the master volume up further doesn't mean the power section is being driven harder.

The only way to drive the power amp harder is to make it produce more power, and the only way to do that at lower volume is with a power attenuator between the amp and the speaker.